During an offset frontal impact of a vehicle, the impact is offset from major structural components of the vehicle. Offset frontal impacts can be simulated with a small offset rigid barrier (“SORB”) frontal crash test. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (“IIHS”) sets a standard for SORB frontal crash tests. In a SORB frontal crash test, the vehicle impacts a rigid barrier at 40 miles/hour with 25% of an outer portion of a front end of the vehicle overlapping the rigid barrier.
During a SORB impact, the rigid barrier may tend to miss the major structural components of the vehicle, e.g., a frame rail. Consequently, the rigid barrier may directly impact a wheel of the vehicle, thereby pushing the wheel toward a passenger cabin of the vehicle. In such instances, the orientation of the wheel may determine the likelihood of the wheel entering into the passenger cabin, e.g., through a floor or dash of the vehicle. The wheel turned away from the frame rail of the vehicle may reduce the likelihood of the wheel entering into the passenger cabin. Intrusion of the wheel into the passenger cabin of the vehicle is a metric recorded in the IIHS SORB frontal crash test.